Me v. Orville Reddenbacher??

If torts is over, then why am I still thinking about it?

I took my four hour test this morning. It is now done and I can burn my outline if I want (though I put so much work into that damn thing... particularly with the colored markers...) and I was home while the sun was out so I made some popcorn... and in opening the package I noticed that the directions of how to pop it were written in english and spanish, and there were also pictures that showed you how to a) put into a microwave b) listen for the sound of popping c) open the package after. Immediately I thought "Hmm, I wonder if this came about through a products liability case where the warning was inadequate. After all, you need to have the right label for the consumers your product is aimed at, and this sometimes means that you needs visual imagery. I wonder if these pictures help people not burn themselves. I wonder what sort of popcorn accidents people have gotten into. Burned from the bag when opening it? There was no warning that listening with your head up to the microwave like that may lead some to develop brain cancer... necessary? negligent? Strict liability? AHHHH!!"

Will I ever be able to ignore warning labels again? I wonder.

The relevant facts

I love it when a case begins like this:

"The relevant facts are undisputed... All agree that Lake Tahoe is "uniquely beautiful," that president Clinton was right to call it a "national treasure that must be protected and preserved," and that Mark Twain aptly described the clarity of its waters as "not merely transparent, but dazzingly, brilliantly so."

I'm glad we all agree.
I also have to note that when you turn the page there is a full blown glossy color picture of Lake Tahoe (or so I assume because there is no caption). There has never been nor are there any other glossy pictures in my book. Though sometimes there are other random pictures, like a woman with her cat or, more recently, a full page portrait of Justice Holmes. Is this actually funny or have I just been reading casebooks for too long?

I wish I could say that it's things like this that get me through property. Unfortunately, it being finals, nothing gets me through anything anymore. MRwahhh.

What not to watch

I haven't written anything in a while. I know. Turns out there is a negative correlation between how funny cases seem and how close finals become. I just got home from attempting to find warm places to study all over this city (seriously - I sat in 5 places today) and I turned on the tv to zone out for a few minutes while I cooked some dinner. Even when I try to watch something dumb, the law finds me. This is the advertisement for a holiday movie that came on. You may think I am joking. I swear I am not.

Flashes of Melissa Joan Hart and Mario Lopez on screen. Marissa looks happy but in a crazed way that sort of says "I may still be a witch." Mario looks frightened yet confident in a "I am cooler than Zach Morris any decade" way.
Voiceover: "She's holding him hostage but he's stealing her heart!" Flashes of Melissa kidnapping Mario, smashing his cellphone so he can't call anyone, and locking him in a room. If there wasn't this upbeat music in the background you would think this was a new slasher flick. Flashes of her looking out the window lovingly at him playing in the snow, a la Belle in Beauty in the Beast when she cannot BELIEVE she is falling for a monster (Remember "there may be something there that wasn't there before?" Classic. What? What's there mama? I'll tell you when you're older, Chip! Sorry, Disney tangent).
Then we hear Mario joke "You know, a federal offense puts you on the naughty list this year!" Nevermind his phone has been smashed and he's locked out in the snow and he is stuck with Melizza Joan Hart. Alone.
Final Voiceover: "This Christmas, don't miss the ABC Family world premiere of Holiday in Handcuffs!!!"

Seriously.
Holiday in Handcuffs.
I'm speechless.

Puzzlemania

It recently dawned on me that if you didn't know much about law school and my blog was your only foray into the legal world, you might think "Wow, law school doesn't seem so bad! These cases are pretty interesting and so entertaining! What are all those "sleep deprived" students complaining about?

In preemptive response, here is an excerpt from my civil procedure reading from this week. You'll notice that none of the cases I have discussed to date have anything to do with civpro. This might explain why.

"This controversy questions the constitutional sufficiency of notice to beneficiaries on judicial settlement of accounts by the trustee of a common trust fund established under the New York Banking Law, Consol. Laws. c. 2. The New York Court of Appeals considered and overruled objections that the statutory notice contravenes requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment and that by allowance of the account beneficiaries were deprived of property without due process of law. The case is here on appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1257."

Hopefully this has not driven you to never read this blog again. Sorry for inflicting my pain on you. But when you are stuck in the library reading 80 pages of this stuff for the week, you sort of start to lose it. At first I though civpro was going to be like a puzzle and that yeah, it was tough at first but once we got more pieces it would all start to come together. What has happened though is that we HAVE gotten more pieces (too many) but those pieces are all upside down - cardboard side up. And every time you THINK you may have fit two of those pieces together, along comes a child or a dog, or another chapter and messes the whole thing up.

I could go on with this analogy. It's a lot more interesting to me than long arm statutes. But my puzzle calls...

Death by silverware

More trouble in the neighborhood. This time, we're looking at a criminal case, not just a dispute over property. The Abbotts and the Scaranos of New Jersey shared a common driveway. The Scaranos were having their driveway paved and Abbott obtained some asphalt from the paving to keep his door from swinging onto his neighbor's property. I thought this was pretty nice of him. But Nicholas, son of the Scaranos, did not see things from my angle and suddenly he and Abbott are in a fist fight.
If this was it, the case would still be pretty random. A fistfight over some asphalt? Calm down, boys! But it gets better. Nicholas's dad sees the fistfight and then came at Abbott with a hatchet. Nicholas's mom followed, "armed with a carving knife and a large fork." Can you imagine that procession? Hatchet, carving knife, large fork. Where did they get their weapons, a garage sale???

And do you know what happened in the end? ALL THREE SCARANOS were hit by the hatchet! That'll teach you from wielding cutlery at your neighbors over asphalt. GRahhh.

These are the people in your neighborhood...

This morning I am learning about easements, estoppels, and other incredibly exciting property concepts. In one case, from 1938, neighbors are (again) fighting because of a sewage drain that runs under their respective properties. The case makes note that the plaintiff is upset that her basement flooded with 6-8 inches of sewage and filth from the pipe that runs under his property. Ok, that sucks, but it's not like his neighbors were actually coming onto his land personally and dumping sewage right?
Not according to the footnote!
"Professor Vetter reports that several residents of Chanute have told him stories about [the plaintiff] and [defendant] dumping buckets of sewage on each other's front porch."

Enjoy your breakfast.

Mother Goose strikes again

Reading a lot of cases for my legal memo in the hopes that one of them will provide better insight than I currently have on non-competition covenants in NY contracts. Anyway, I am in the middle of reading one about an executive at MTV who may have breached his contract in attempting to switch over to Fox Kids and here is an excerpt:

Once Cronin signed the contract with Fox Kids, after having been warned [...] not to sign, he had irreversibly breached his employment agreement with MTVN. In other words, "All the king's horses and all the king's men, couldn't put Humpty together again."

Was the judge trying to be cute? You'll notice it's quoted but there is no citation listed. I want to know the edition of the nursery rhyme book he got that from. but more importantly, where the hell did that reference come from? What a strange way of saying that an executive irreversibly breached his contract. Not done with the case yet, but I am definitely crossing my fingers and hoping for some more good mother goose references. Like maybe, if he decides to abandon the whole thing, the court can say - In other words, "Along came a spider (lawsuit) and sat down beside her and frightened Miss Muffet away."

Will the sun REALLY come out?

An excerpt from my amazingly dry theory reading for torts:

"Fleming James articulated this loss-spreading goal in terms of the marginal utility of money, which he explained with his 'bottom dollar' thesis."

Apparently, one's 'bottom dollar' is that person's most valuable dollar and every dollar thereafter has decreasing value to that person. All this time I've been listening to Annie sing 'Tomorrow' and I never knew that she had any concept of economic theory! There she was, in the middle of the depression, telling everyone to go ahead and bet their most valuable dollar that the sun would come out the next day. Literally, there are very strong odds for this. Figuratively, which I think is the way that the little orphan meant, she was running a lot more risk with her betting than she maybe should have been. People betting their most valuable dollars is not a way to end a depression.

This, of course, was not at all the thrust of my reading and I am just as lost now as I was before, but my professor is 15 min late to class and i have showtunes stuck in my head. Happy friday.

No lease for you!

A divorced black woman tries to rent an apartment in NY and the landlord refuses her. Oh, it's not because she's black or divorced or female, he says. It's because she's a lawyer and he "prefers to rent to passive people who are not attuned to their legal rights." Oh, ok. Well, at least you're not a racist.

This happened in 1977 and the landlord won because, while it was illegal to discriminate based on race, creed, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or marital status... there's nothing in the legislation protecting your profession.
In 1986, perhaps in light of more cases like this one, NYC passed a law prohibiting discrimination based on profession after lawyers (among others) complained that landlords refused to rent them apartments.

As if I didn't already have enough trouble finding housing...

Noses... big noses.

So here’s an interesting case from only 15 years ago.
A man was working at a Rib House in West Virginia as a dishwasher and admittedly, he’s got some problems. According to the case:

“He suffers from chronic depression (dysthymic disorder), an obsession with his nose (body dismorphic disorder), and borderline personality disorder. The defendant’s father shed some light on his nose fixation. He stated that dozens of times a day the defendant stared in the mirror and turned his head back and forth to look at his nose. His father estimated that 50 percent of the time he observed his son he was looking at his nose. The defendant repeatedly asked for assurances that his nose was not too big. This obsession began when he was approximately seventeen years ole. The defendant was twenty-nine years old at the time of trial”

That’s a lot of space in my book dedicated to writing about this guy’s nose. Why? Well, one day he was washing dishes as usual with another guy and the other guy began to tease him. Slapping with him with the dishtowel and such, trying to lighten the tense mood in the kitchen. But then he slapped him on his nose. Bad idea.
Defendant freaks out, removes a knife from his pocket, and STABS HIM IN THE NECK.
As the co-worker falls to the ground he cries “Man, I was just kidding around!” to which Mr. Big-nose replies “Well, man, you should have never hit me in my face!”

Oh, homicide. Even if you’re terrifying, at least you’re amusing.

Going into reverse gear with Stephen Colbert

Some thoughts from Stephen Colbert:

"Our nation is at a Fork in the Road. Some say we should go Left; some say go Right. I say, “Doesn’t this thing have a reverse gear?” Let’s back this country up to a time before there were forks in the road — or even roads. Or forks, for that matter. I want to return to a simpler America where we ate our meat off the end of a sharpened stick."

I prefer my hands to a sharpened stick, but I like where Colbert is going.
The host of the Colbert Report took over Maureen Dowd's New York Times column on Sunday and had other bits of wisdom to share as well. Full of truthiness and good old fashioned liberal bashing.

With liberty and justice for all?

Read Lawrence v. Texas today - the supreme court case of 2003 deciding the validity of a Texas statute making it a crime for two persons of the same sex to engage in certain intimate sexual conduct. Happily, the court overruled precedent and said the statute was no longer valid. Unhappily, Scalia wrote a nice long dissent arguing that "homosexual sodomy" is morally wrong and that invalidating a law against it would cause a "massive disruption of the current social order". Also, in his agreement with precedent Scalia makes note that prohibitions against homosexual sodomy do not implicate a fundamental right under due process since someone's right to engage in anal sex is not "deeply rooted in our nation's history and tradition."

Can we just pause for a moment and realize how ridiculous that is. Honestly.

So, what do you think? Has the social order been massively disrupted since 2003? Now that people have a little more freedom in their sex lives I guess the apocalypse DOES seem nearer. Maybe that's just me.

Grahh. I hate arguments defending prejudice under the guise of morality.

criminal but funny

I read a lot for criminal law this week on causation and group criminality. The topics aren’t that important for the purposes of this entry – what IS important is how random and/or nonsensical some of the details in these cases are. For instance:

In a disturbing rape case from the 1930’s in which the defendant abducted a woman and sexually assaulted her including infliction of severe bite marks (!?!) the woman was somehow able to leave the hotel they were staying at and, accompanied by a random man we are told is named ”Shorty", goes to buy a hat. A HAT. Oh, also, while she is buying the hat she buys 6 tablets of bichloride so that she can try to kill herself and then she returns to the hotel! The issue the case raised was whether the defendant was liable for her later death in part because of her (semi-failed) suicide attempt. The issue that I want to raise is – why the hell did he let her go out with Shorty to buy a hat? Am I missing something here?

In a case that examined the relationship between the liability of parties, a man (we’ll call him A) propositioned another (B) to burglarize a store, not knowing that B was actually a relative of the store owners and wasn’t too psyched about the idea of stealing from them. So B goes along with the plan in an attempt to arrest A and lets the store owners know of his big plan. On the night of the burglary, A and B go to the store together, A opens the window for B to climb in and B “handed out a side of bacon” and that was all they stole.

I reread that sentence a couple of time. “Handed out a side of bacon”???? Was this lingo from 1891 that I was not following? Turns out – nope! They really did steal bacon. It seems to me that if you are going to rob a store, it makes more sense to go for something a little more valuable like say, I don’t know, diamonds or even very nice silverware. But bacon???? I guess people have different interpretations of what breaking the law is worth.

Music break

So this has nothing to do with law but I think it's a really interesting experiment. Actually, a few weeks ago we read a case for property about a company similar to napster and whether their business violated copyrights. This experiment that Radiohead is doing really makes you think about those laws AND about how much you'd be willing to pay for an album if it was totally up to you...

children, grand juries, and big career prospects

Some random thoughts from a weekend spent reading too much law:

• In the legal world, it seems that children and the mentally insane are often grouped in the same category. In a way I feel badly for BOTH demographics in this comparison. Though I guess it makes some sense when you consider that you probably wouldn't trust testimony coming from either a schizophrenic or a 2-year old.
  

• I enjoy the term "grand juries". It makes the jury sound so regal, like they were picked specially for a higher calling than the rest of us, particularly those of us unlucky to end up on just a regular, plain jury. I like to imagine the grand jury sitting around a table in ballgowns and tuxes, drinking tea brewed by the judge in his mahogany chambers... which he also lets the grand jury (but never oh NEVER the regular jury) hang out in all the time.
  

• In my civpro book, in discussing expert witnesses, the author provided some examples of who experts can be. Here's the quote... and my subsequent analysis with my brother:
  

"On a given point, the needed expert may be a doctor, a chemist, a fingerprint specialist, a musician, a carpenter, or anyone with a specialty"

Me: What a random assortment of jobs to pick. And it sort of rhymes!
My Brother: They should have dipped into Nursury rhymes...."A expert can be a butcher... a baker..... a candlestick maker..."

If only my whole book was written my Mother Goose... and the cases were about spiders frightening Ms. Muffett and dishes running off with spoons. I think that is what I am going to do with my law degree - write the very first nursery-rhyme centered textbook. Look for it on shelves in three years.

When Rhyming and Law collide

So here I am, reading a case for my legal writing assignment, and I get to the end where there is a footnote. I start reading the footnote.. and realize that it is RHYMING. It is a footnote poem summing up the case and court's decision. I don't know if it was written by Wendell A. Miles, senior United States District Judge of Michigan, but it's not credited to anyone... so I am assuming it's his little tail-note to the opinion. Why all cases are not just written in rhyme I have no clue. Seems a better format, no?

Here is some footnote poetry, at its finest:

When your job is on the line but you've worked, put in your time
don't despair or lose your cool, dump some oil, now who's the fool
bribe the management and make them bristle
if all else fails, just blow the whistle
no response, so you try court but your time there may be short
because your claim did not have merit you were dismissed, now grin and bear it
hereby DENIED are a motion to amend
as well as one filed to extend.
IT IS SO ORDERED.

The Van Valkenburghs are dead

Last week we read a case about feuding neighbors whose issues began in 1946 and continued for more than 20 years. The litigation was over a small piece of land where one family the Lutzes - though it was not their land - had planted a garden and set up a small home for the Mr. Lutz's mentally handicapped brother. The other family - the Van Valkenburghs - later bought the land from the government, sort of as a "fuck you" to the Lutzes because Mr. Lutz had chased the Van Valkenburgh children out of his garden one day waving an iron pipe and screaming "I'll kill you!". Why any parents would get upset about this is beyond me. Why Lutz did not even show up to his criminal trial is also mysterious.

So the arguments go back and forth, they both fire their small town lawyers and hire wall street attorneys, one builds a big fence between their properties so the other cant walk across it, Mr.Lutz DIES but his wife keeps up with the lawsuits in his honor (presumably) AND ps, the book also makes important mention that the citizens of the town totally loved the Lutzes but didn't like those Van Valkenburghs. Cause that's going to matter a lot in court.

Anyway, my favorite part of this whole mess is the conclusion the book writes as a "here's what happened after the trials ended":

"Eugene Lutz and his wife [caretakers of mentally handicapped brother] continued to live in the Lutz house. The traveled way, bound by a tall chain link fence, and the house were guarded by two ferocious dogs, whose menacing barks warned strangers away. The Van Valkenburghs are dead. The triangular tract - the subject of this bitter dispute between neighbors - is now owned by a church."

Absolutely ridiculous.

Wheel of lawsuit

Did you know that in 1993 Vanna White sued Samsung Electronics alleging infringement of various intellectual property rights? It's true. In part, White alleged that Samsung infringed on her right of publicity by "appropriating her identity".

Want to know how they "appropriated her identity"? They aired a commercial with a ROBOT in a blonde wig and gown standing next to a big wheel. The caption underneath read "Longest Running game show: 2012 AD".

That's it. Essentially, making fun of the longevity of the show itself and not poor, mistreated Vanna. And yet she sued the electronics company for appropriating her identity in the form of a robot. Seriously? I mean, I am not even going to get into the legal issues involved here but rather just focus on the fact that this woman who makes a living (and a pretty nice one at that) pointing to a big-ass wheel took the time to meet with her lawyer about this robot. And then she took the time to sue the company. And then she took the time to go to trial because of a robot in a wig. I mean, seriously!! Was she afraid that people would confuse her with the robot? If so, I guess she has some bigger issues. Was she annoyed that Samsung seemed to be profiting off her image? But they could have put ANYTHING beside that wheel. They could have placed an elephant next to the wheel and we would get the connection because the reference is to the gameshow - not her. Would she have sued them for allegedly alluding to her as an elephant? What about a robot elephant?

If I ever run into Vanna on the street I am going to tell her that her unnecessary litigious nature makes me sad. But not before I ask her if it's really her I'm speaking with and not some crazy robot imitation version of Vanna White, cause I get confused like that. Most people would.

I am not CJ Craig

I love the West Wing. Particularly CJ Craig. She’s witty, smart, and awesome… not gonna lie, I’ve got a small girl crush on her. So it may not surprise you that she turned up in my dream last night that was sort of a cross between the West Wing, my fear of being called on in law school, and the 2008 Elections. Intrigued? Read on.

So in my dream, for some reason I was the person who was in charge of giving announcements that day at the White House. Like a guest speaker but from the masses. And they gave me some big paragraph to read where I was going to be announcing the next president.. or presidential nominee, or… anyway, it was something important. How I warranted this honor I have no idea. Dreams are cool like that. But then 30 seconds before I am supposed to go on, the nominee backs out. They still want to announce somebody in the speech though! So there is a whole panic attack behind the scenes where people were all asking “who wants to be president? Quick! We need someone! Seriously, anyone will do” (dreams don’t mimic real life at ALL, huh??). Some random guy then volunteers and CJ scribbles his name onto my speech for me. 2 seconds later, I’m up.

I walk up to the lectern and stupidly have not practiced reading this speech at all. So I’m stumbling over words, trying to speak slowly, and then I come to an entire MISSING PARAGRAPH. I try to bullshit something about how great our country is but it’s clear I have no CLUE what I am doing and then I come to the end of the speech where I say ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, the next nominee for the president… mmmphrmphh”,

Yup, that’s what it sounded like. I literally mumbled something indistinguishable because I had no idea how to pronounce this new guy’s last name... and everyone cheered anyway. Go figure.

Interpretations?

Scavenger hunts for the library-bound

Today we had the first of many trainings in the library. We were taken around in small groups by legal librarians and they began to teach us how to do legal research. We were then given a problem (mine was whether you can try a juvenile as an adult for burglary in Arizona) and let loose into the stacks to research the answer.

This is when I had what is possibly one of my biggest dork moments to date (though I guess that’s always debatable. I’ve got lots).

“Oh, it’s like a scavenger hunt!” I exclaimed.
It wasn’t until after the words came out of my mouth that I realized just how ridiculous that statement was. Even more ridiculous was the fact that this was exclaimed. Happily. Equating legal research with joy.

Maybe I’ve just been out of the library for too long or maybe this reveals that I honestly really like research. In any case, now it's out in the open. And while I could be embarrassed, I am going to choose to be proud. Proud if for no other reason than that I realize much of the next chapter of my life is going to be centered around this research, so I better learn to embrace the inner (and blatantly outer) dorkiness ☺

Fox is to baseball as law is to crazy!!!

Today we got an email sent to the entire law school community reminding us that what we say on the internet can seriously affect our job prospects in the future. The email made references to multiple law students and lawyers who had posted something dumb on a blog or said something bad about another person in a seemingly anonymous forum and then subsequently gotten fired or not confirmed for a seat on the bench, etc. Basically, the email made me fear email, internet, and ever using my keyboard again.

None the less, I decided to press on with the blog. Because I am not a bad person and while my entries may laugh at legal cases, they do not (or hopefully do not) offend people. But let me just put out there now that if you are a person who plans on suing me in the future, please stop reading this blog now because I don't like you very much and I think you should find some other website on which to amuse yourself.

Now on to the important things.

For my property class today we read 4 cases related to who has possession of foxes, whales, ducks, and a baseball. Obviously I am leaving out details of the cases and simplifying things here but in the middle of class I was sitting there, furiously typing notes, listening to people make incredibly intelligent comments over whether a whale who sinks to the bottom of the ocean is the property of the whaler who killed it and how does this relate to foxes and is killing foxes in the public good and how does all this relate to a headmaster poising himself outside a school with a shotgun to scare away students (seriously) ...
and I took a step back and just thought - what the heck are we doing here?!?!? I mean, I followed the logic and the discussion and I DO understand why these cases are significant, but property rights to a fox you are chasing down the beach? Why did you even bring that case in the first place, you 19th century litigation-happy fox killer?? Was it worth that much effort? And did you realize, in bringing that lawsuit, that you would be forever studied by law students around the country and in turn laughed at FOR said lawsuit? Did you??

And isn't it funny that this ancient case about foxes was later referenced in the court decision over the Barry Bonds baseball that 2 fans fought over?
Moral of the story:
Foxes and Baseballs. So different... and yet both have inspired property lawsuits. I heart America.

Cannibalism, and other fun labor day activities

Here are some short summaries of the cases I have read over this long weekend, for your enjoyment. This way, you too can learn the law! While not in formal case briefing format, I still think they give a good sense of the issues (and of some of the ridiculousness of the law).

Torts:
Can you sue a 5 year old for pulling a chair out from under an old woman who was about to sit there if he did it intentionally? Turns out you not only CAN, but you can get $11,000 in the process. Pretty sweet, if you don't mind that whole bringing a lawsuit against a kindergartener part of the deal.

Criminal Law:
If you are shipwrecked in a small boat and decide to kill the kid who’s too weak from starvation and dehydration to defend himself, you may get a good meal out of it but it turns out you WILL be tried for cannibalism (casually referred to back then as the "custom of the sea")... because after ignoring it for a while, it finally became time in 1884 to set the example that eating your shipmates does not make for good sailing.

Property:
Yes, the Native Americans were here first but really, they were just savages who didn’t know how to use the land so it’s not a big issue that they can’t technically OWN any of it. But hey, we still let them live here because we believe in freedom, justice and all that other stuff in our constitution.
(By the way, in reading this case I had the enchanting melody “Savages!” stuck in my head from that oh-so-politically-correct Disney movie Pocahontas. If you don’t know the song, I do NOT suggest googling the lyrics. They’re possibly more offensive than this case itself)

Back to school...

Remember that part in Billy Madison where Adam Sandler is standing on the side of the road singing about returning to school? Everything seems so great. He's going to prove to his dad that he is not a fool. He's got a lunch box packed with delicious treats.
I sort of feel like Billy Madison. Not in the "I'm about to begin Kindergarten" way, but in the "I am sort of old and starting school again" way. I think a couple of years off can do that to you.

Anyway, I don't really know if anyone is going to read this, but after reading for most of the weekend I realized I am going to need some sort of outlet to talk about school. And life. And sorry, sometimes law. But hopefully in a fun way that does not exclude those of you who have made the life choice not to subject yourself to law school. I respect you and your decision and also wonder if in the next few months I will come to envy your decision making skills.

In any case, I am at the point now where I am pretty excited about school. Nervous about all the work and all the things I am going to learn, sure, but also really looking forward to forcing myself to think in new ways and dive back into that library. Maybe i will look back at this entry in a month and laugh/cry/freak out about what I just said, but that is ok. Because it's all just part of the process (or at least, that is going to be my mantra from now on).

Thanks for reading.